Tuesday, April 30, 2013

The May stamp of the month, Pinwheel, is so much fun! Don't take my word for it: check out this month's blog hop to get tons of great ideas! If you've already started the blog hop, then you should be arriving here from Jill's blog. After checking out my card, click her name to go to Beth's blog next. Are you ready for the fun?

This card came together quickly using a sketch from the Make It from Your Heart how-to guide and the CTMH Cricut Ariste cartridge. I love the spring-y colors of the Chantilly paper pack! To jazz it up, I used silver shimmer trim as the pinwheel stick instead of the stamp in the set.

Monday, April 29, 2013

The final April challenge @ Heart 2 Heart is to "tuck it in." With graduation quickly approaching (5/17!), I couldn't help but think of cards that can easily have a check or cash tucked into them. Here's what I created:

I used my Cricut Artiste cartridge to cut everything on the front, starting with this cool card base from Crystal Blue card stock (p. 57, cut @ 3-3/4"). The banner is from the Artiste collection stamp set, Birthday (p. 58, cut @ 1"). The adorable hot air balloon is part of the April stamp of the month, My Sunshine* (p. 70, cut @ 2-3/4"). The clouds can also be found on p. 70 (1" and 3/4" cuts). I chose the Gypsy and Honey color scheme to match our school colors. The "grass" is a strip of Chantilly B&T that I hand trimmed to mimic the banner.

The two stamps on the inside are from the Artiste Kudos stamp set. At graduation time, I always think about Dr. Suess's book, Oh, the Places You'll Go! and the hot air balloon reminded me of that too.

Now, can you tuck it in? Since the end of the month is tomorrow, we've extend this week's deadline to Saturday, 5/4. All the other April challenges will close tomorrow at midnight. I hope you'll join us at H2H! Be sure to check out our Design Team's inspiration for you this week.

*If you'd like to see a layout with the adorable April stamp of the month, click HERE to check it out.

Friday, April 26, 2013

Wondering about the new trend, washi tape? Come play and create with washi and CTMH's shimmer tape at this fun card class on Saturday, 5/18 @ 2 PM. (I'll even show you how to make faux washi tape!) You'll create a set of darling summer cards as you explore these cool products and the Dream Pop paper pack (only available in May). The $5 class fee will be waived with a minimum $25 order. Please RSVP by 5/15, and I'll give you directions to my temporary location (near my house). If you can't attend, you can still get a card kit. Contact me for more info.

Also, anyone who purchases the Dream Pop promotion in May will be invited to a special, free scrapbook workshop (6 two-page layouts!) on 6/13 @ 6:30 using your Dream Pop pack. Contact me for more details and save the date!

Monday, April 22, 2013

In my family, we are all big Harry Potter fans. I began reading the books because they were all my students could talk about (and I finished the 6th before the 7th was finished, so it killed me to have to wait). My older daughter has also read all the books, and our younger has tackled a few. Of course we love the movies too, so when our friends also wanted to visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studio's Island of Adventure, we knew were going!

We didn't let something like a little rain stop us from enjoying our adventure.

Can you believe that this is the elegant For Always collection? You can use it for so much! Ruby and Honey are great matches for the Gryffindor colors. Did you know that in Studio J you can use any of our 40 beautiful colors?

Also did you happen to notice the "stitched" lightning bolt by the title?

If you have lots of digital photos and want to scrapbook, then you are going to love Studio J. All you do is upload your photos, select your collection (paper packs), the number of photos you plan to use on your layout, and begin creating. Can you believe that in less than a week's time (more like a few hours worth) I have the pictures from my trip scrapbooked?

The flower festival and all the topiaries were really cool!

We camped at Disney's Fort Wilderness campground:

I even made a layout for my daughter's album (all the above go in our travel series):

If you want to give Studio J a try, just click and go! You only pay for the layouts or JPGs that you buy.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

We spent this past week (spring break) in the Orlando area (camping at Disney's Fort Wilderness specifically) and were blessed to have Easter dinner at my aunt & uncle's home. We were all trying to remember when the four (of five) remaining siblings had all been together, and sadly, it had been a very long time! My Dad is the "short" one on the left.

We also got to see this lovely young lady (my flower girl!), her groom, and her mother (my cousin). Here's a Studio J layout I made of our trip to their wedding last May.

It was so great to visit with everyone! Family is definitely EVERYTHING!